


problems of eternity

by samssalvation



Category: Jupiter Ascending (2015)
Genre: (only in the beginning dw), Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Balem lives, Balem's relationship with his mother was so twisted I just needed to explore that, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Mentions of incest, Parent/Child Incest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-08
Updated: 2015-09-08
Packaged: 2018-04-18 21:47:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4721654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samssalvation/pseuds/samssalvation
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are many problems associated with eternity.<br/>Balem is unfortunate enough to experience them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	problems of eternity

**Author's Note:**

> a prologue.  
> (incest warning).

There is nothing more tragic than a broken promise.

Broken promises symbolize the inevitable degradation of emotion, the fading of past memories, the dilapidation of intent. Like the remnants of an ancient civilization, they serve only as a reminder of the past, a history lost forever. A tether holding two people together cut clean through, setting them adrift. They ache, they bruise, they bleed, never to heal by the same hand that broke them.

She promised she would never hurt him. She promised she would never leave.

And then she wrote a tragedy.

 

To say that the Earth was like any other estate would be as though to compare a super-giant to a dwarf star and say that they were equal. The Earth could provide a crop that escaped the wildest imaginings of almost anyone in the business, could bring in enough profit to last a hundred thousand years more. The Earth, therefore, was not just  _an estate_. It was a treasure. It was the crown jewel of Seraphi Abrasax's property, built on a legacy of riches and ruthless dealings, and each one of her children desired it.

As Balem Abrasax was the crown jewel of her offspring, he assumed that the estate should fall to him in due time. After all, that is how it had worked in the years before the invention of RegeneX, and the tradition was assumed to continue. But in the business of eternity, the question of inheritance became not a question of who the favored child was, or who knelt by their mother’s bedside on the hour of her death, but whether or not she would die at all.

Balem also assumed that she would never do any such thing.

Promises are a very strong thing in the Abrasax line. Perhaps they always are, in powerful families, as the misstep of a single sibling could throw their inheritance to the wolves. As a consequence, Abrasaxes did not make promises. If they were offered a deal, they would reply that they would consider it as soon as they were fully capable of discussing the matter in full. If they were doing business, the matter had to be very serious indeed, and one could be assured that, more than being capable of discussing the matter in full, they were capable of discussing circles around the originator of the deal, and always ended up on the better side of the bargain. And there was always, _always_ , a better side.

But Seraphi had promised him. She made the promise the night his father was murdered at an entitled conference millions of light years away, and Balem was certain that she was going to keep it. So he grew up, and he never questioned it, because she had promised.

As the years passed, she broke other rules—the unspoken kind that controlled their every move and the ones she deigned to break for him. She involved him in the running of Abrasax Industries, she let him make deals, she made his name a legend among the competition before he even had a real office to call his own. From the moment of his father's death, she was training him to become the best in the business, the heir that would make the company thrive until the stars crumbled into dust.

He was later granted some authority over Earth, which came as no surprise. His other estates were smaller, less difficult to manage, and he fell into the new project with an ease and excitement that startled everyone. Titus became jealous of him, ever more moody with every day that passed. He stayed out on his ship touring his estates for longer, only stopping by their home planet on birthdays, if at all. Kalique was less dramatic. She took the evidence of favoritism with a wary eye and spent more time on Cerise, but never hesitated to call Balem with any piece of news he might find of interest.

It was clear to anyone who knew of the family’s inner workings that Balem was the star of Seraphi’s show. She mentored him, cared for him, and never ceased to show him off, as mothers do.

She did other things too—things that mothers didn’t usually do, things that mothers weren’t supposed to do. Things that Balem should have been disgusted by, but never was. She had him twisted around her little finger, and he never realized what that meant. And that was the second problem with eternity: the lines between family and something more began to blur. With the benefit of time, the bonds of family were both stretched and wound tighter than ever—one's siblings could look older than one's parents, and yet they were family for longer, for millennia. A thousand human lifetimes spent together, and one could easily forget that one was the offspring and not the comrade, the blood and not the beloved. No longer was there an age gap of twenty, thirty, forty years between parents and their children. The distance between them was larger, but their bodies would never show it, and that was what would betray them.

Oh, how Balem loved to be betrayed.

She betrayed him in every way possible, or so he thought. Every line of societal convention, everything he had ever known for sure, every moment of prior contentment was thrown into doubt and blown away by her lips at his ear. Nothing about it was right, but nothing about it felt wrong, and that was enough to make him forget it. They were a million different tragic lovers, all spun into myth and legend on a little planet they called Earth, always reaching for each other and never touching. And when they did touch, they exploded; everything was red, from the nail marks on his skin to the burst blood vessels in her lips. It became a blur of flashing colors, naked skin, empty boardrooms and endless youth.

Then, three thousand years later, he learned what true betrayal was. His mother asked him to break her promises for her, all the ones said aloud and all the ones pressed into his skin with bruised lips. She asked him, and he shattered. A million pieces flung to the furthest reaches of space. Because he loved her, and even if it meant breaking every code of conduct he had ever learned to live within, everything he’d learned in the business of murder, even if it meant ripping his own heart from his chest, he could not deny her wishes. Her final, deadly wishes. And so he did as she asked, and as the light faded from her eyes, he cradled her in his arms, wondering how he had ever come to be there. Wondering whether he had ever hated himself more than he did then. Wondering if he could bring himself to live another day.

He was a smattering of broken glass, and it was all because of _her_.

But he made it past the first day. And the second. And then he made it through two thousand years more, watching over the planets she had trusted him to keep, almost forgetting the face he’d loved—or thought he loved, or perhaps was made to love—all those years ago. He worked his trade with an iron fist; competitors folded to his influence, women flocked to his side, enemies were made. He, who had become hollow the moment his mother’s heart had stopped, who lived to keep her alive in his mind, who went two thousand years believing with his very _soul_ that he would never see her again.

As it turned out, Balem lived two thousand years’ worth of a lie.

The third problem of eternity was that nothing ever happened just once. He saw her again, hovering over an operating table, dressed in a paper gown. He saw her, and it was like coming home. Only home, it seemed, was changed. Or rather, it was he who had changed—empty, solitary, vicious, _broken_. He was no longer the son she had known, which was fitting, as she was no longer the mother he had loved.

In her mother’s will, Balem knew her recurrence had been given some recompense. He knew well that his mother had prepared to hand off some of her estates to her copy, as she had many and would therefore have many to spare. But he had never looked to see which ones. When he heard about the recurrence, he decided it was high time he did. Then she betrayed him for the final time.

Earth was hers. Of the hundreds of planets she owned, she had kept the best for last. The best for the person she loved best—not her son, not her _lover_ , but her. That was when Balem realized that she had never trusted him, not really. She had given her reincarnation, a woman she had never met and a woman who might never have existed, the one estate that she had treasured above all others. She had always intended to keep the Earth. Because in the end, she trusted her own genetic code more than her son.

Balem saw her, Jupiter Jones, and he wanted her dead.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope to continue this, and from here on out it will _actually_ be Balem/Jupiter.  
>  I am such trash for this ship.  
> Let me know what you think!  
> edit: I don't think I'll actually be continuing.


End file.
